‫ﻣﺨﺘﺒﺮ ﺍﻟﻘﻴﻢ ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺠﺘﻤﻊ ﻭﺍﻟﺘﻨﻤﻴﺔ‬
‫ ﺃﻳﺖ ﻣﻠﻮﻝ‬- ‫ﺍﻟﻘﻄﺐ ﺍﻟﺠﺎﻣﻌﻲ‬
Laboratoire de Recherche Valeurs,
Société et Développement
igr asdwan - ayt mllul
CAMPUS UNIVERSITAIRE - AIT MELLOUL
THE 1ST
INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
SUB-SAHARAN MIGRATION TOWARDS WESTERN EUROPE
MULTIPLE SOUTHS
MULTIPLE NORTHS
MARCH 10-11 2017
CAMPUS UNIVERSITAIRE - AIT MELLOUL
THE 1ST
INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
SUB-SAHARAN MIGRATION TOWARDS WESTERN EUROPE
MULTIPLE SOUTHS
MULTIPLE NORTHS
‫ ﺃﻳﺖ ﻣﻠﻮﻝ‬- ‫ﻋﻤﺎﻟﺔ ﺍﻧﺰﻛﺎﻥ‬
tambnamt n inzggan - ayt mllul
Préfecture d’Inezgane - Aît Melloul
RATIONALE
Quite a pack of Sub-Saharan in-land migration literatures produced within Western Europe
and without seems to register two main absences: an absence of serious efforts to formally
investigate the distinct origins, cultures, ethnicities, languages, and nationalities of the
immigrants, on the one hand, and an effacement of the distinct transit routes they ‘trouble’
towards Western Europe, on the other.
Several unknown trodden geographical and unfamiliar cultural territories that the
Sub-Saharan migrants towards Western Europe are crossing or re-crossing, or avoiding, or
(il)legally deciding to temporarily or permanently stay in rest unnamed. This outmoded
matrix, that several discourses on sub-Saharan migration seem to attend to, is closed against
the appropriate and sensible designation of the several ‘Souths’ from which the various groups
of immigrants originate and the multiple ‘Norths’ that they cross on their routes to Western
Europe. The generic analytical mechanisms that serve the Sub-Saharan issues of migration
seem to sketch this complex movement as if it were a single flight from a one same point of
departure (the troublesome ‘Africa’) cruising across untroubled heights landing in one same
destination (the troubled ‘Europe’). Since this is not the case, the issue needs to unpack into
careful newer modes of scrutiny that may be contributed to by voices from within the bipolar
(both south and north) transit geographical locations. Researching the myriads of in-land
traces of the cultural groups and individuals who unplug national, or tribal, or family umbilical
03
cords and throw them behind signifiers far more complicated than just an essentialized
‘African Economicus’ shall assist in the desired mapping out and close reading of the patterns
born from the unnatural and upsetting multiple crossed and re-crossed borders by numerous
languages, nationalities, cultures, religions, ethnicities, genders, etc.
The multi-faceted patterns that must be recurrent and may serve as cached data that may
upgrade contemporary approaches seem to be lost because of the absences that we seek to
contend and register here. What correlates from the short or extended encounters (indirect or
proximate) with the migrants and the countries they cross in transit (or is it?) are deserving of
not only different research paradigms, but also courageous narratives that can break away
from Western Europe’s concern with migration as nothing else but an protracted
geo-economic discomfort. We seek to tell a different story of the migrants in and through the
foreign lands they cross towards the rich promised lands they more often than not never reach.
To this end in view, we invite abstracts from any discipline that address these concerns from
a variety of perspectives and disciplinary angles. Submissions in literature, sociology, cultural
and media studies illustrative of these emergent discourses are especially welcomed. We are
particularly interested in research on the new directions in scholarship engendered by current
patterns of global migration.
04
GUEST SPEAKERS
• Wali of Region Souss Massa, Ms. Zineb El Adaoui
• Dr. Abdellah Boussouf, Secretary General of the Council of the Moroccan Community
Abroad, Morocco
• The Ambassador of Finland, Ms.Anne Vasara
• Minister Plenipotentiary of Federal Republic of Nigeria in Rabat: Mr. I.F. AJADI
• The Ambassador of Italy, Ms.Roberto Natali
• The Ambassador of Spain, Mr.Ricardo-Diez-Hochleitner Rodriguez
• Professor Omar Halli, the President of Ibn Zohr University
• Professor EL Hassan Ben Abbou, the President of Laboratory Values, Society, and
Development
05
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
• Professor Yassine Rachida
Dr. Rachida Yassine is professor of English and Cultural Studies at Ibn Zohr University,
Morocco. She is Coordinator of the Phd program in « Race, Ethnicity, and Alterity in
Literature and Culture ». She has a Phd in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies from the
University of Nottingham, UK; an MA in Linguistics and Translation from the University of
Bath, UK; an MA in English and American Literature and a Post-Graduate Diploma in
Comparative Literature from the University of Essex, UK. She is the author of Re-writing the
Canon: Aspects of Identity Reconstitution in Postcolonial Contexts (2011). She has been
invited and appointed as a research group leader at the Institute of World Literature, Harvard
University, USA where she has conducted extensive collaborative research. She has published
many articles and book chapters on colonial and postcolonial literatures, postcolonial
feminism, and cultural studies. She has participated in many international conferences in the
UK, the USA, Europe the UAE, and the middle East. Her present research interests include
critical theory and cultural studies, gender and women’s studies, Comparative literature. Her
latest publication is a book chapter in a forthcoming edited book: Claire Eldridge and Rabah
Aissaoui, eds. Algeria Revisited: History, Culture and Identity. London: Bloomsbury. (See
Amazon.co.uk for the details of the book cover and the table of contents)
06
• Professor Nyman Jopi
Dr. Nyman Jopi is Professor and Head of English at the University of Eastern Finland,
Joensuu Campus. He has doctoral degrees in English (PhD, University of Joensuu 1996; and
Sociology (DSocSc, University of Joensuu, 2005) and carries out interdisciplinary research in
the fields of literary and cultural studies. He is the author of several books, including the
monograph Displacement, Memory, and Travel in Contemporary Migrant Writing (Leiden
and Boston: Brill, 2009), and the recent co-edited collections Racial and Ethnic Identities in
the Media (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), Affect, Space and Animals (Routledge 20156), and
Mobile Narratives: Travel, Migration, and Transculturation (Routledge, 2014). His current
research interests include transcultural and border narratives and human-animal studies. He
directed the research project CONIMAL: Companion Animals and the Affective Turn for the
Academy of Finland (20112015-). He is the current Programme Chair of MESEA:
Multi-Ethnic Studies in Europe and the Americas and the current President of the Finnish
American Studies Association for American Studies.
07
• Professor Oucho, O. John
Dr. John Oyaro Oucho, professor at the population studies and research Institute, University
of Nairobi since 2010. Since August 2008, he is founder and executive director at African
Migration and Development Policy Centre (AMADPOC), Nairobi, Kenya. He gained his PhD
from U of Nairobi. His scholarly grants includes the Marie Curie Chair, Centre for Research
in Ethnic Relations, School of Health and Social Studies, University of Warwick, United
Kingdom. His interest focusses mainly on African migration and development. He is an active
member within African continent with his statements of expertise. His recent publication
includes an edited book entitled: Migration in the Service of African Development
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PANELISTS AND ABSTRACTS
• Sub-saharan renegade communities: from transnationality to transition-ality:
Prof. A. Ridouane (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
The trends that can be roughly identified in current research on Sub-Saharan migration are
the following: an overwhelming focus on the political and economic instability provoking the
last decade’s staggering increase in the number of immigrants; the smuggling and trafficking
that occur in the Nigerien town of Agadez, one of the most notorious meeting points
wherefrom irregular migrant groups dispatch cross the desert routes; death tolls across inland
and Atlantic and Mediterranean sea borderlines; the transit hubs in and during temporary (both
short and long) stays in the countries south and north of the Sahara desert; the security
measures devised by both African and Western European authorities; and the detention centers
which are today housing thousands of migrants after they arrive to Europe.
To the dismay of any postcolonial scholar, these trends can be redistributed under the same
recalcitrant binary oppositional model that the postcolonial legacy has, for the last three
decades, sought to dismantle into grayness (without much success it would seem): the
glorious rich Europe rises again versus poor Africa that sinks in pools of economic and
political failures. Today, this reality is not primarily based on research. Rather, evidence of this
reality comes from the countless testimonies of the African subjects, who paradoxically are
being used by the media of the very countries that close their borders against them.
I am, therefore, not especially concerned with the prevalent researches about the trends
sketched above, though I will intermittently refer to them. I will, especially, try to ‘migrate’ in
the opposite direction. I will try to tell the story of the migrants as invisible communities
in-transit, not as pseudonym-ed individuals summoned to indict the African plagues in return
09
of acceptance and philanthropy. Even if these testimonies, broadcasted to discourage potential
migrants, do contribute to the ongoing research about Sub-Saharan migration.
The communities in transit in question are quite particular. They have their members ooze
in from different regions of Africa, different religions, languages, tribes, and social, marital
and multi-levelled educational categories only to congregate as an ephemeral invisible
community that lives in temporariness. A short lived community that, while striving to unbind
into individuality in the gradually xenophobic new locations, paradoxically devises communal
codes of conduct, mini-social structures, surviving strategies. It would be helpful to debate on
what scholarship and academia can make of the ephemerality and instability of these
communities in transit, and to what extent these communities reflect the crises in postcolonial
studies, cosmopolitan ideals, nationalist creeds, and neo-liberal economies, all at once. To
what extent are these renegade communities’ transition-ality a tool to debate one of the crises
of celebrated transnationality? Asked differently, are these communities in transit a paradigm
of globalization’s economical transnationality on account of cultural transition-ality. Is their
being closed against media access while in-transit a sign of their invisibility or a metaphor of
how cultural fusion and tolerance could effortlessly be improvised among multi-national,
multi-ethnic groups without the supreme guardianship of academia and authoritative
institutions, or is it simply a metaphor of the gradual demise of the communal under the
neo-liberal order? Does these transit communities’ opaque ephemerality not jeopardize
individual testimonies credibility and reliability?
Keywords: Transit migration, Postcolonialism, Transnationality, Liberalism, Globalization,
Identity.
10
Moroccan Migration and Integration Policy: The Intersection of Culture and
Public Policy Making: Dr. Mohammed Ouhemmou (Hassan II University)
Abstract: The 1990s represented a landmark in Morocco’s migration policy. The signing of
Schengen agreement, and the subsequent securitization of European borders through the
“fortress Europe” policy has changed Morocco’s status from a country of emigration into a
country of transit. Morocco has become the final destination for thousands of regular and
Irregular Sub-Saharan migrants (SSM). The Moroccan state responded through a security
approach. It declared war against irregular migration, and legal frameworks such as law 0203were adopted. However, such approached created intense international criticism which
highlighted the limitation of Morocco’s policy. Criticism that was given further legitimacy by
the recurrence of incidents such that of Ceuta and Melilla 2005 event and the shooting if
immigrants near the cities’ fences. In response to such criticism Morocco initiated a new
migration policy in 2013, to address the escalating problems of its immigrants. This policy
was framed in the context of the new constitution, as well as the royal instructions. Yet, the
over-celebratory attitude and rhetoric subdued serious debates about the possible success of
the newly born policy, and the future of the Sub-Saharan community. The new policy is built
on a homogenizing assumption about SSM. The richness, diversity and cultural engagements
that exist within the migrant community are overlooked in a way poses serious questions
about the relevance of culture to policy making. Henceforth, the linguistic differences between
Anglophone and Francophone SSM are not considered at any stage of policy making.
Therefore, while Francophone migrants such as the Senegalese were included at all levels of
policy formation, adoption, and implementation. Anglophone migrants such as the Nigerians
were marginalized. Put differently, the French assimilationist model with its ethnocentric
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attitude seems to have had its effect on Morocco’ policy. A state which claims to be “country
whose roots are in Africa and its branches stretch towards Europe” and therefore more capable
to understanding the nuances in the Sub-Saharan migration experience. Such problem is
further exacerbated by failure to integrate thousands of Sub-Saharan children in the
educational system. An issue is likely to exacerbate in the future, and create an ill-adapted
second generation immigrants. Consequently, the social, cultural, and economic gap between
the migrants and the host community will further expand. The participation of civil society and
local NGOs in the burden sharing through efforts such as literacy classes and vocational
training does fill gaps neglected by official policy makers, but does not address the institutional
and structural problems that hamper integration. The aim of this paper is to investigate the
cultural aspect of the Moroccan migration policy. Its limitations in addressing issues of social
and cultural integration. By linking the formulation and implementation of the policy with the
prevailing political culture and popular perception of Sub-Saharan Africans, the paper
explores the intersection of mode of cultural perception and public policy making.
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New Start Finland aims to develop novel, effective models to promote health,
well-being and social integration of refugees: Dr. Tiina Ahonen and Dr. Csilla
Veszteg (University of Eastern Finland).
Abstract: New Start Finland is a sub-project of wider PROMEQ consortium. PROMEQ
aims to promote health and well-being of vulnerable groups. The central aims of the PROMEQ
are: (1) to provide a better understanding of health inequalities (2) to develop novel methods
to promote health and wellbeing in cooperation with the target groups (3) Integrate HWP
actions, social-, health- and employment services and social marketing as a functional
ensemble in the models (4) test these models for a year and evaluate the effectiveness and
cost-effectiveness by scientific methods (5) produce policy recommendations, validated
indicators, models of good practice and future strategies based on the results to support
evidence based policies and better informed decisions.
Refugees are one of the vulnerable groups and the target group of New Start Finland. As the
growing body of empirical research indicates, refugees face significant barriers to social
integration i.e. language acquisition, access to educational opportunities, employability and
social inclusion, which results in negative outcomes for health and wellbeing. However, the
scoping of the needs of the refugees and development of new models based to their needs to
strengthen the social integration are lacking. The objective of the study is to improve health,
wellbeing and early stage of resettlement of refugees through the evaluation of innovative
social marketing interventions i.e. pilots.
13
Research setting includes two-part-survey, inclusive pilots between surveys and evaluation
of the pilots´ effectiveness and cost-effectiveness with mixed method design. Local pilot
partners design and implement pilots with social marketing framework and therefore the pilots
will be eventually tailored based on the needs of the actual group. Themes of the pilots are: 1)
access to education 2) social participation 3) work preparedness and 4) language acquisition.
First round of the survey will be conducted in the beginning of 2017. Survey participants who
will participate also to inclusive pilots, are the experiment group of the study, whilst group
which will not participate in the pilots, will be the comparative control group of the study.
Second round of the same survey is conducted approximately one year after the first survey.
Two survey rounds and two groups (experiment and control) allow comparative analysis and
will therefore provide information of effectiveness of the pilots and new knowledge of the
well-being and the needs of the target group to create future strategies and practices.
14
Crossing Borders: Home, Identity and Belonging in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We
Need New Names (2013) and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009): Dr. Tembi
Charles (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
The political instability that appears to be the norm in most African post-colonial states has resulted
in the destabilisation of economies forcing many citizens to leave their countries to escape political
persecution, hunger and disease. Although there is movement within the African continent, this paper
argues that migration to the Americas and to Europe is perceived by many to be the solution to the
problems citizens face in their home countries and the fulfilment of dreams for ‘civilisation’ and wealth.
Through a reading of two novels We Need New Names (2013) by NoViolet Bulawayo and Harare
North (2009) by Brian Chikwava, this paper explores how the two writers represent the
lived-experiences of Zimbabwean migrants in the United Kingdom and America. The paper proposes
that, through particular narrative devices, such as the manipulation of language and the use of child
narrators, the texts expose the difficulties of living in foreign lands and present the West as an alien
space. The paper begins by mapping out the impact of the Zimbabwean political, economic and social
crisis and how it has negatively affected citizens’ rights and forced them to leave the familiar for the
unfamiliar. It then traces the main protagonists in each text showing how these new voices are narrating
life in the diaspora from a different perspective. Ultimately, the paper is a critique of the idea that
movement to the West is a solution to the problems currently being experienced within the African
post-colonial state.
15
Sub-Saharan Immigrants’ Satire on Moroccans and Europeansin Transition Zones:
Prof. Abdelghani ELkhairate (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
This paper is about the intercultural properties of satire and how it functions in modern world of
mobility and immense intercultural contacts. Based on the idea that satire is a mode of representation
and performance that can expose the forms of power which are at work in transition zones, like that of
Morocco, this study theorizes on the role of racial satire in relation to its cultural condition to show the
impact of satire as an instrument of attack and its cultural repercussions. The focus will be on how
different forms of racial satire represent the relationship between the sub-Saharan Self and the Other,
either in countries of transition or target destinations. It also seeks to analyze how this representation
changes due to mobility, cultural encounters, politics and new media.
16
Rewriting Otherness: The Alter(native) Discourse of Difference in Mohammed
As-saffar’s Sudfat Liqae Maa al Akhar (1845-1846) and Mohammed Al Maqdadi
Wartatani’s Al bournous fi Baris(1913):
Dr. Tritha Abdelaziz (Chouaib Doukkali, El Jadida)
North African travels to the West during 19th and 20th centuries, as put on aesthetic
grounds and written out of history, remain valuable archival material that stand as alter(native)
discourses of difference; they subvert, challenge and write back from their own perspectives.
My particular focus is on Mohammed As-saffar’s Sudfat Liqae Maa al Akhar (18451846-) and
Mohammed Al Maqdadi Wartatani’s Al bournous fi Bariss(1913) . I argue that these travel
accounts are occidentalist parallel discourses that tend to rewrite North African cultural
historiography beyond parochial manichean binarism and stand as valuable documents that
chronicle North African travelers’ presence not as silent interlocutors but rather as active
participants and eye-witnesses from within Western contexts. This paper considers the
importance of these archival accounts as historical backgrounds that tend to go beyond the
orientalist compartmental mindset which, however, fuels tension and draws divisive
boundaries between the Self and the Other. Using a postcolonial micro-historicist approach,
this paper aims at undermining both the orientalist discourse and the occidentalist thesis
premised upon Hassan Hanafi’s Muqaddima fi Ilm al-Istighrab (An Introduction to
Occidentalism).
17
Mobilising identities.The internet as a transcultural contact zone for Malian-diasporic identity construction: Dr. Syntia Hasenöhrl (University of Vienna)
Considering the current racialised im/mobility regime (Turner, 2007) and the
simultaneously increasing importance of the internet for diasporic communication (Damome,
2011; Kissau & Hunger, 2009), my submission outlines how diasporic user interactions in
social media contribute to the construction of mobile identities between and across multiple
Norths and Souths.
Western discourses tend to construct essentialising static and denigrating identities of
people in and from African countries (Hall, 1994; Said, 1978). This is still exacerbated by the
current mobility discourse that celebrates a mobile cosmopolitan elite in opposition to a
sedentarist perspective on people from the Global South (Bakewell, 2007; Nicholson &
Sheller, 2016). Postcolonial and diaspora studies, on the other hand, emphasise the hybrid
nature of identifications emerging in transcultural contact zones (Bhabha, 1994; Brah, 1996;
Braidotti, 1993; Mudimbe, 1997). Their claims receive support from mobility studies as they
stress physical movements of people and goods as well as imaginative, virtual and
communicative mobilities as integral characteristics of contemporary societies (Urry, 2007) –
and the identities constructed therein (Easthope, 2009).
My contribution builds on these considerations and argues that analysing diasporic identity
construction in social media can enhance our understanding of mobile identities and challenge
essentialising binaries. As an example, I draw on observations of transnational user
interactions on the Malian news portal Maliweb.net. In Malian society, mobilities are an
18
important demographic feature (Bocquier & Diarra, 1999; Whitehouse, 2012). Moreover,
social media use is increasing, based on the traditional experiences of a highly liberal media
sector (MfWA, 2013). This also enhances the emergence of transnational identities as, for
instance, based on a common entrepreneurial spirit by the ethnic group Soninké (Galtier,
2011). Maliweb, as the first online news portal for information cussion on Mali offers a broad
range of articles from diverse Malian and international media. With a discussion function and
the connection to Maliweb accounts in central social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Google+), it encourages user participation.
My methodology is informed by ethnography in digital social contexts and critical
discourse analysis. By combining diverse discursive practices, I analyse how they contribute
to identity constructions of and by Maliweb users. The integration of mobilities, moreover,
helps me to identify oscillations between a national focus on Mali and transnational elements.
Thereby, I explore how these practices can challenge essentialising representations and
promote mobile identity constructions.
19
Faqir’s Willow Trees Don’t Weep: a transmodern journey of deserted femininity:
Prof. Dallel Sarnou (Mostaganem University)
Recent years have been marked by an alarming rise of fundamentalist terrorism worldwide.
At the same time, in many Western countries, xenophobia, Arabo-phobia, Islamophobia and
many forms of racism have sternly increased to act in response to terrorist attacks that have
hit major cosmopolitan cities like Paris, Brussel, London, Madrid and New York. As a
backlash to generalizing all Muslims and people coming from the Middle East as terrorists,
Anglophone Arab writers have assumed responsibility for uncovering truths about Arabness,
Islam-related issues and women treatment in the Middle East through their works of fiction to
a Western readership that is orientalist par excellence. By celebrating trans-modernity (Rosa
María Rodríguez Magda, 1989) and glocality ( Robertson 1992), these writers attempt to
re-localize Muslims and Arabs within the international community. The British Jordanian
author Fadia Faqir is considered as a leading figure in transnational literature. After having
published her fifth novel, Faqir’s books’ reception in the West have a reached an important
increase due to the rise of interest in understanding the Other who is considered as a threat to
the West. In Willow Trees Don’t Weep, Faqir has defeated censorship-phobia and decided to
write about the life of a terrorist and his deserted family. The novel exposes the mess
contemporary world is experiencing. While some people think they are fighting for saving
humanity, they end up horrifying people. This is the case of the protagonist’s father who
20
begins a journey to save the Islamic world but winds up as a terrorist. As for Najwa, his
daughter, she sets out to save herself, but she eventually ends as a dislocated immigrant in
Durham. Her journey, I contend, is a transmodern one since she visits places from the South
of the globe, and others from the north of this globe to realize beauty in the Burqaa of Afghani
women, to be captivated by the majesty of the Trees of Durham and to fall in love with the
Pakistani cuisine. A story of hatred and love, forgiveness and accusation, secularism and
fundamentalism, broken promises and dreams, and father and daughter, Willow Trees don’t
Weep takes the reader in an epic journey with the protagonist to discover the mysterious
country of Afghanistan and to learn untold truths about Jihad and Islamism. The present paper
offers a transmodern reading of Faqir’s latest novel Willow Trees Don’t Weep (2014).
21
“Ah Cain’t see me!” The “Black Atlantic Culture” as a Corrective to Modernity:
Prof. Lahoussine Hamdoune (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
The present paper advances that the “Black Atlantic culture” constitutes a genuine revision
of Modernity in that such culture, akin to the European’s initial encounter with the African,
demonstrates the essentialist racialized aspect of Modernity’s enunciations. The presence,
since the 17th century, of people of African origin in Europe, North America, and the
Caribbean isles together with their incessant forging and exchange of ‘compound’ forms of
culture, nurtured in the North hemisphere but preserving signs of African ancestry, represent
a “counterdiscourse” of Modernity. As the “Middle Passage” comes posterior to
Enlightenment, and hence incorporated within Modernity as Paul Gilroy (1993) posits, the
related Western practices of, respectively, enslavement, colonialism, and racial segregation in
modern national state all undermine the ‘universal’ claims of Modernity. While standing as
the first group to uncover, by being subjected to massive deportation, ‘material violence’ as an
inherent character of Modernity, the Africans in the West have demonstrated, throughout the
black Atlantic history, that they are the group that has virtually subverted most discursive
enunciations of the Enlightenment discourse. One concern of this paper is to demonstrate that
the European encounter with the African, a literally violent encounter, has lead to Hegelian
discursive production of the African as “Man in Nature” and “Man without history” which
maintains, rather than displaces, the notion of the African as a “cannibal”. I argue hence that
the definition of ‘man’ that is supposed to be ‘universal’ shows, once measured through the
African, to be in fact racialized and caught in the binary opposition (white)Man/cannibal.
Another concern, following from the previous one, is that if “Man in Nature” presupposes an
inability to produce culture and entails as well the black man’s standing as an antithesis of
history, then the Black Atlantic culture is a “counterculture” of Modernity in a manner that is
22
twofold. First, it displays, within the West, cultural products and practices testifying to the
creativity of diasporic Africans. A telling marker of such a creativity is the associated
processes of “syncretizing” or “creolizing” that imply, I argue, a subversion of both the
racialized view of culture rooted in Modernity and its by-product of ‘national culture,’ a fixed
entity, devised by the national state. Second, the ‘performative’ character of the Black Atlantic
culture and the fact that in it the aesthetic is largely not separated from the ethical or the
political, bring about a “vernacular intellectual,” an entity being both similar to and different
from Gramcian “organic intellectual”. This paper will ultimately demonstrate that by
disturbing the universalized notions of Man, History and Culture as grounded in Modernity,
the Black Atlantic culture and history are to be seen as a corrective to Modernity and the
Enlightenment project.
23
The Politics of Recognition and Cosmopolitanism: For an Ethic of Global Citizenship:
Dr. Ait abdelmoumen Rachid (University of Mohamed V-Rabat)
It is quite conceivable now that in a world which faces global risks (of an ecological,
political, economic, epidemic, criminal and terrorist character) and in the rise of crude
right-wing nationalism which surges across Europe once more, alt-right and white supremacy
movement in the United States, a transnational and a cosmopolitan concept of society needs
to be reconsidered again both on the part of the individual and on the part of the state; a
concept of society which acknowledges and defends the right of all human beings to have
universal rights. The plight of pariah peoples--the plight of today’s undocumented
immigrants, asylum seekers and exiles —who lost their rights of home and nation, and, as
cosmopolites, who resist the imaginary status of these concepts and endorse a world
citizenship, is also our plight as violence and barbarism continue to be the real motors of
human history. This paper aims to argue that now the conditions are ripe for us to elaborate
new transnational forms of society which go beyond the tradition of “methodological
nationalism” as an approach which naturalizes the existence of the nation-state and vulgar
national ideology as a normative form of solidarity and social integration, and which
simultaneously do not negate nationalism but presuppose it and hence transfigure it into both
a “cosmopolitan nationalism” and a “cosmopolitan patriotism” which recognize difference
and cross-cultural heterogeneity. It is enough to look at the mass migrations, diasporas and
involuntary exiles around the world to realize that we need to develop a new consciousness of
solidarity and social integration and to recognize that cosmopolitanism has reality on its side.
Likewise, liberal cosmopolitanism renounces homogenous global cultural forms and defends
24
cultural deference and autonomous decisions of free individuals as long as such decisions
do not violate the rights of other people no matter how their race, color, gender, religion,
country, sexual orientation, and identity are. The recognition that identity endures through
difference—indeed, that it only endures by difference—will be a useful touchstone for
everyone involved. In attempting to defend such an ethic of difference attached to
cosmopolitanism and transnationalism, this paper draws on the works of many cosmopolitan
thinkers and philosophers among whom are Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nessbaum,
Jacques Derrida, Ulrich Beck and Robert Fine.
25
Islamophobia, Racism and the Vilification of the Muslim Diaspora:
Prof. Rachid Acim (FLSH- – Ibn Zohr University)
Is Islamophobia a new phenomenon? Are Islam and the Judeo-Christian West still hateful
of and hostile toward each other? Do Muslim women constitute a threat to the West’s secular
and liberal values? What has fuelled the sudden rhetoric of Islamophobia in the United States
of America and Europe? How are the persecutions, prejudices and discriminatory practices
against male and female students, along with the social exclusions of the Muslim diaspora in
general, reported in the Anglophone print and digital media? These are critical questions that
need a thoughtful coverage and concentration in academia. It is believed that most of the
grievous and painful stories experienced, for example, by Muslim immigrants – be they legal
or illegal, asylum seekers, refugees, or whatsoever, still do not find a room in scholastic
research. This paper utilizes the narrative research method to study and probe into the problem
of Islamophobia, the vilification and racism against Muslim diaspora in the United States of
America and Europe. The use of human stories, people’s personal experiences and narrative
accounts or recounts of Islamophobic incidents (real or imagined) as the basis of this inquiry
is particularly suitable for research because it can help understand the status quo of Muslim
diaspora in the United States of America and Europe. Narrative data will be retrieved from
three major US-news publications and press elite (e.g., The Foreign Policy, The New York
Times and the Washington Post); the analysis of these data can be used to improve the
situation of Muslim diaspora and their interaction with non-Muslims all over the world. The
mediums cited above have been chosen because they are the major source of information for
intellectuals and policy-makers; decidedly, they construct and build up ample epistemologies
on Islamophobia and epiphenomena of racism.
26
RIACE MODEL: The Intelligration:
Ms. Anna Di Giusto (Italian Society of Historian Women)
Mimmo Lucano is one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders, according to Fortune. He is the
mayor of Riace, a little town in Calabria. In 1998 his village welcomed a boat with Kurdish
refugees: from that moment everything changed, and many migrants has arrived from all
around the world: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Mali, Togo, Nigeria, Somalia, these are just some
of the countries of origin of the new inhabitants of Riace. This region has been plagued for
centuries by emigration, but now lots of migrants are being accepted in the human and demotic
fabric. Here they can have a house, a job, education and health care (Bennis 2009). The major's
goal was to redeem depopulated buildings, engaging a transformation prospect marked by
intercultural coexistence (Guarracino 2016). This is a successful attempt to naturalize
globalization, starting from the ancestral predisposition to reception that people of the South
of Italy have inherited from archetypal Greek ancestors and Basilian monasticism (Aria 2008).
To define this phenomenon, we can use the neologism intelligration: if integration and melting
pot are hinged on an economiccentric subjectivity, based on the contractual relationship and
focused on cultural assimilation in separated spaces, intelligration means that the other is
invited to be part of a fabric which must be recovered (Ricca 2010). This way, the pressure on
the borders by worldwide migration flows becomes an opportunity for the local rebirth.
Migrants are called to translate themselves into physical and symbolic spaces of the country
27
landing (Sedda 2003). Convinced by this example, the region Calabria has signed a law after
the intuition of Riace's mayor, funding each project of refugees' reception which aims to
promote handcrafted production, local traditions, responsible tourism and solidarity economy
(Zolin 2015). My research is focused on the study of this reality, with the intention of offering
a practical solution to a situation that, up to now, European countries and institutions are trying
to buffer as an emergency, and not as an opportunity (Remotti 2009).
28
The invisible crossings: Identity politics and the politics of destabilizing the new
diasporic space in the Mediterranean:
Prof. Sbiri Kamal (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
For centuries, the Mediterranean has been a space for multiple crossings of fluid identities.
The “Mediterranean space” suggests distinctive images of ambivalence, representations, and
today is deemed the desired, the uncanny. This uncanny space is now in need of political
actions toward the flow of illegal migration, engendered by the “humanitarian crises”. The
significance of this ambivalent space has now become visible and remained at the fore of
border-crossings and European security. The extensive political, economic, and cultural
changes taking place over the Mediterranean space has made it necessary to think of the
multiple processes estranging the new wave of “diaspora” delineating a new “new diasporic
space” in the Mediterranean. The intensification of mass illegal migration has also deranged
the stability of a strategic migration policies in Europe, and the focus on new rules of securing
borders from those who once considered as, and still are, “others” is yet to be implemented.
Rather, the advent of mass-media technologies have made blurred the space between both
shores of the Mediterranean and the culturally identified spaces as North and South, since the
illegal migrant or refugee needs to cross different heterogeneous “norths” in order to reach the
north of “norths”— i.e., Europe. In this paper, I seek to examine how is the Mediterranean
space culturally constructed and represented by illegal migrants and refugees. Today, owing to
the current flow of illegal migrants –from the southern shore of the Mediterranean –residing in
Europe, new migration policies are enforced to re-assess social and cultural politics in Europe.
An example of these is the new decision made by both Germany and Sweden to deport illegal
29
migrants to the North African countries such as Morocco and Algeria. This being said, it is
no longer possible to imagine the Mediterranean as a space of different homogeneous
imagined communities. The flux of identities and the intensity of migration processes toward
the north of “norths” made it impossible to think inside the imagined community only. Rather,
it is imperative to think of the Mediterranean space as an inner fact of global geography that
need take into consideration the economical, political, and cultural changes happening in both
shores at large.
30
The Plane has Departed from Africa:
Identity, Language, and Border Crossing in Postcolonial African Writing:
prof. Bouchra Benlemlih (FLSH – University Ibn Zohr)
This paper takes as its focal point the interrelations between home, identity, and language in
postcolonial African Literature. The paper seeks to illuminate and interrogate the relationship
between identity and language in Anouar Majid’s novel Si Yussef, Leila Aboulela’s Minaret,
and Abdelkbir Khatibi’s Amour Bilingue. The study seeks to interrogate how these works
serve as resistance narrative that seeks to create a new literary space within the larger matrix
of postcolonial African literature. Answers to these questions provide the focus for discussion:
What kind of identity do these novels produce through language use and in the very structure
of the texts? How do they express otherness and alienation? How do they become a statement
of decolonization, deconstructing Eurocentrism and subverting all oppressive orients and
occidents? How do the writers celebrate nationalism and re-create national landscape? By
raising these and other questions, I settle for an unsettled state in reading Majid, Aboulela, and
Khatibi, giving insights into the complexities and realities of postcolonial identity. The
remainder of the paper highlights a multi-faceted perspective, connecting these elements to
postcolonial undercurrents in Majid, Aboulela, and Khatibi’s works.
31
Migration between Reality and Illusion: Gender Approach:
Dr. Siham Marroune (University Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University)
International relations and borders have entirely triggered the aspirations and therefore
affected the perceptions of Moroccan women since the physical and psychological movement
that migration entails is regarded as dissolution from the indigenous patriarchal customs.
Besides, the process of mobility from Morocco to Western countries holds the potential of
engaging women in a more authentic itinerary of self- recognition that rebukes not only the
inherent stereotypes of their counterparts’ social power but also the prevalent Western
discourses as a whole. Contemplating the lives of Moroccan women in a more complex light,
helps to rethink the conceptualization of migration in transnational terms; that is to say,
Moroccan female migrants are no longer caught in the trap between either assimilation or
nostalgia and the ‘myth of return;(Anwar,1979) rather, they are actors with agency of their
own. A plethora of literary representations of migration offer meticulous glimpses on the
interior world of the male migration. Yet, scarce attention has been given to the’ female aware’
which plays a pivotal role in the process of mobility and must seamlessly be considered as
intrinsically linked to migration. For the purpose of contextualizing the feminized migration,
I single out Tahar Benjelloun’s With Downcast Eyes and laila Lalami’s Hope and Other
Dangerous Pursuits. Informed by gender and migration theories, this paper seeks to address
the representation of female migration into modern spaces as a push factor in the development
of identity and agency. I shall further contend that even though migration might be perceived
as an empowering experience, it acts as a catalyst for occluding the process of empowerment.
32
Refugee narratives from Eastern Africa:
Revitalizing the Indian Ocean’s Traumatic past :
Dr. Mustapha Kharoua (University of Eastern Finland)
The notion of multiple souths in this study emphasizes the importance of bringing the
Indian Ocean to the attention of contemporary readers. I use Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novel By
the Sea (2001) as it helps rethink the scholarly tradition overemphasizing what Paul Gilroy
dubs “the Black Atlantic” (cf Steiner 20092010-; Hofmeyr 20072012-). Out of historical
responsibility, the novel partakes in the scholarship that documents the links between Africa,
the Middle East and South Asia with the aim to critique the race politics in post-independence
Zanzibar and Britain.
By deploying trauma as a critical framework, I read the text as an instance of “literary
witnessing” that rethinks the history of the Indian Ocean through the lens of two Zanzibari
refugees’ experiences. I thus argue that the anxieties of unbelonging submit the refugee
narrators to the same ideological structures that made colonialism and slavery possible. The
prefix “post” in “postcolonial” and “post-slavery” is thus linked to the posttraumatic in
African cultures since the devastating consequences of racism, state oppression and
imprisonment are enduring aftereffects of the colonial enterprise.
33
As a displaced Zanzibari refugee of Arab descent, Omar Saleh is the older narrator who has
dwelled in the two houses by the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans in both Zanzibar and
England. For the elderly man, this transoceanic displacement has revitalized the memory of
the rich and manifold culture of the Indian Ocean. Implied in such a movement is a barbed
critique of the nationalist race politics that caused Zanzibar to lose its multicultural aspect as
the epicenter for the “musim” trade. The narrative also documents the violence instigated
against the Zanzibaris of Arab descent and draws attention to the pressing need to rethink the
“Black Atlantic” as a benchmark for the African diasporic experiences. More broadly,
therefore, Saleh’s grim tale can be read as an attempt to relate the marginality of his status as
a refugee to the necessity to revive the memory of the Indian Ocean.
34
Transnational Families across Africa: Constructions of Family Networks
between Morocco and the Other African countries:
Prof. Abderrahim Anbi (FLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
The notion of family is never regarded as homogeneous. The cross-cultural mobilities
among south-north syndrome threaten the predominant configuration of home and family in
its traditional ways. Globalization has forced the new diasporic to belong elsewhere: a place
where stability is motivated. Taken these new contemporanieties, it is demanded that new
approaches must be reconfigured so as to measure how new familial alterities affect to a
certain degree the homogeneity of traditional definition of family. To this end, the aim of this
paper is to delve into questions of home and family in their transnational context. In so doing,
I would like to shed light on the new transnational families and how these new modes of
belonging help in deconstructing the segments of social relations in one’s constructed home.
It will also help in enforcing the aspect of Benedict Anderson’s view of the communities as
imagined.
35
Edward Said’s “Between Worlds” and The Dilemma of Home: Identity
from a Middle-Space Encounter:
Dr. Latifa Safoui (University Ben’msik, Casablanca)
Edward Said is acclaimed as the father figure of postcolonial theory, the architect of much
of what today’s scholars refer to as issues of identity, displacement, alterity, self and other,
inbetweenness, and other jargon that has brimmed writings in the second millennium. Said’s
ingenious invention of a whole theory that stands out with vigor as the most controversial and
unsettling narrative that human thought has ever produced in its extensive history, and the
credibility it has garnered, so far, and which is the very reason behind the division it sparked
among scholars rests heavily on the fact that Said spoke from immediate, personal experience.
Said’s biography which he penned towards the end of his life lifts the veil on the driving
motives that fuelled his early interest in the self and other duality, in the dilemma of home and
“ the out of place” trope, in the linguistic and physical displacement, and in the center and the
periphery that authoritatively marked his academic career. I intend to investigate these
concepts in light of his article “Between Worlds”, published in the “London Review of
Books”. Said’s “constant restlessness”, as he himself labels it, worked on shaping his career
both as an academic and as a committed intellectual with genuine concerns about the historical
right of subordinated groups to representation and recognition on an international scale. The
systematic, sustainable alienation of peripheral groups, Palestinians for that matter, and the
persistent muffling of their voices in the media and in academia at large, put Said on the
defensive and made him spell the articles of faith of what came to be worldly known as
postcolonial theory.
36
Afro-American Prison Writings: Undoing Race Trouble and Trauma Recovery:
Dr. Ismail FROUINI and prof. Abdelkader Sabil (Chouaib Doukkali University)
Race is a discursive-performative construct. It is the by-product of the knowledge and
power relations dynamics. Afro-American dissidents have been once shaped by these power
relations and therefore have been subject to these race dynamics. Afro-American prison
writings are counter-discourses and testimonies against the atrocities of “white” (wo)men
during the Civil Rights movement era. Since their historical trauma of enslavement,
Afro-American (prison) writers have left testimonies and diaries about the ordeal of their
captivity. The corpus of prison writings documents an important historical period of activism
and state repression. This paper investigates the notion of race as a discursive construct and
how such discourse perpetuates power relations underlying the oppressed and the oppressor,
the dominant and the subaltern in Afro-American prison writings. It also analyses how
Afro-American prisoners reveal and recover from the trauma they have undergone in the
“white” ideological state apparatus, prison. It is premised upon offering a reading from a
cultural studies perspective to Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice (1992), Assata Shakur’s Assata
(1987). Both detainees have witnessed the trauma caused by the atrocities committed against
coloured people by the “white” racists outside and inside prison during the era of Civil Rights
Movement.
37
Diasporic Women’s Narratives: Women’s Sexuality and Religion As Conflicting
Forces In Najat El Hachmi’s The Last Patriarch:
Dr. Fatima Zahra Abid (Mohamed V University)
Moroccan women’s literary writings have been widely acknowledged since the 1990s for
breaking the silence over women’s issues and voicing their concerns and those of their
compatriots from an Islamic feminist perspective in postcolonial modern Morocco. Their
literary texts audaciously draw on issues of identity, religion, gender, sexuality and
immigration. This paper would address these issues from a feminist postcolonial lens that will
unveil the complexities of a female immigrant’s identity in Najat El Hachmi The Last
Patriarch. This article would argue how religion and sexuality constitute the controversial
world that the female character becomes aware of while living in an exotic land and in a host
society that cherishes individual autonomy and religious freedom. The article will examine
how she becomes open to the contradictory religious perceptions of the female sexuality. The
boundaries of gender, religion and women’s sexuality demonstrate a new path for migrant
women writers who transgress social, cultural and religious norms and foreground for a
feminist sexual revolution in the Arab world, in Mona Eltahawy’s terms.
38
The Ontologies of Border Crossing:
Prof. Mohammed Nouhi (ENSA – University Ibn Zohr)
This article seeks to re-examine the complex epistemologies of migration from Africa to
Europe. It argues that crossing the border from the South to the north provides insightful
meanings to theorize the multidimensional ethics and politics of migration. In the first place,
Moving beyond borders registers a process of de-territorialization involving a new
subjectivity in perpetual transit and transformation. It forges a subject of multiple belonging
and consciousnesses inhabiting the third space of liminality, in-betweeness, and cross-cultural
interconnectedness. Secondly, it is deeply-rooted in human agency and resistance. Beyond the
shackles of geographical, historical, social, and cultural boundaries, border crossing becomes
an emancipatory project which opens up a liberating outlet from the confines of subalternity
and marginalization towards change, empowerment, and better living conditions. Finally,
immigration is a constitutive condition of uneven development and a powerful site to deeply
question the the ideological and institutional legacies of colonialism and to deconstruct the
rigid dichotomies implicated in the hegemonic discourse of the centers and margins of power.
39
Sub Saharan Women in Morocco and their relationship to their
transnational children:
Cynthia Magallanes-Gonzalez (Occidental College, Los Angeles)
In this article, I draw from 30 interviews with Sub Saharan migrant women in Morocco to
analyze how their migration affects their ties to their transnational children. These women
leave their children because they are pursuing better economic opportunities in Europe. Sub
Saharan women in Morocco are ‘transit migrants,’ which means that Morocco is not their final
destination but rather the gateway into Europe. Although Sub Saharan migrants see their stay
in Morocco as temporary, most are stuck for longer periods than anticipated due to Europe’s
tightening of its borders (Lahlou 2015). Although previous research shows how the migration
of women affects their relationship with their (transnational) children, most studies focus on
the migration of women from poor countries to rich countries (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2013).
There is no empirical study that looks at migrant mothers who get ‘stuck’ in transit countries.
This article fills the gap in the literature by examining the experiences of Sub Saharan migrant
women en route to Europe. My findings have broader implications on transit migrant women
in other countries. The racism Sub Saharan migrants face in Morocco negatively impacts their
stay there (GADEM 2013). For example, because of racism it is harder for them to find
(well-paid) employment (GADEM 2013). Thus, Sub Saharan migrant women are unable to
financially provide for their children while they ‘wait’ to enter Europe. Ultimately the lack of
financial means also undermines their reason for migrating--economic advancement. Previous
40
literature on transnational mothers in post industrialized countries states that migrant
women fulfill their role as mothers, despite their geographical distance from their children, by
maintaining regular communication and by sending money to them. I find that transit migrant
women are unable to send money and regularly call their children because they lack the
financial means to do so. I argue, however, that Sub Saharan women still attempt to live up to
the expectations of a good mother by emphasizing that they will provide financial security to
their children when they reach Europe.
41
The Translation of Culture from a Postcolonial Perspective in Season
of Migration to the North:
Dr. Hassan OU-HSSATA (Sultan Moulay Slimane University)
Despite the varied research made about translation, little is known about the relationship
between translation studies and postcolonial discourse. The first impressions highlight that the
two disciplines are too distinct, but in fact they are not. This study is a descriptive
inter-disciplinary work that brings together the interconnections that exist between the fields
of post-colonialism and translation studies. The prime objective of this research is to
investigate the translation of culture from the postcolonial viewpoint, especially by describing
the strategies used in the translation of culture-bound elements in Tayeb Salih’s novel “Season
of Migration to the North”, and by providing an interpretation of the cultural value of choosing
a translation strategy rather than another and the significance of that choice. Within the same
line of thoughts, the study introduces Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization
global translation strategies. Practically, a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) was
used in the investigation. Instruments used to collect data were picking words directly from
the novel, comparison and detection of the used strategy and analysis of the intention of the
translator and the resistance functions of translation. Results from the study signify that the
novel is foreignized, and maintain that translation is influenced by some nonlinguistic factors,
precisely in the way it can be used as a form of decolonization, promotion of the visibility of
the marginalized cultures and inversion of the power hierarchy between the colonizer and the
colonized. Hence, translation can be more than a linguistic activity; it is a means to make
heard the voices of the marginalized.
42
The Itinerary of a Hyphenated Writer: Arab-American Identity and Memory
in Laila Halaby’s West of the Jordan:
Dr. Hind Youssefi (Sultan Mulay Sliman University Beni Mellal)
The events of September 11th and the current conflicts in the Arab world and in the whole
world served as a watershed moment in recent memory of Arabs’ engagement with
discrimination. That is why the identity of hyphenated Arabs, living particularly in the United
States, becomes decidedly more challenging. All these factors have acted as strong motivators
for contemporary Arab American writers to express their identities, their dislocation and
longing for their original homelands. Many of these writers and novelists have always been
compelled to privilege one half over the other. To bring the Arab-American identity to the
forefront, this proposed study is designed to address the problematic of the hyphenated
identity and cultural memory in contemporary Arab-American fiction. Hence, it will lay out
both a theoretical and a practical analysis of the Arab-American writer Laila Halaby’s West of
the Jordan and to explore how this writer’s personal experience, in addition to the historical
and socio-political contexts of her text, have influenced her characters’ identities and homes.
In the pursuit of its goal, this paper tries to answer some critical question such as: How do they
identify themselves first? Are they Arab first or American first? How does the genre of fiction
negotiate a space for the Arab-American characters within their communities and how do they
mediate between their two halves? How does memory become the key for surviving in the
mainstream America?.
43
(Re)framing Trauma, Home, Race and Diasporic Identity in (Post-)9/11 Fiction :
Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land (2007) as a Case Study: Dr. Brahim
BENMOH and Prof. Hamza TOUZANI (Chouaib Doukkali University)
This paper investigates the politics of trauma, home and identity in (post-)911/ fiction. 911/
trauma has contributed to the emergence of a new evolving literary genre known as 911/
fiction or 911/ literature. By and large, this type of literature centers on 911/ and its
repercussions on the identity of individuals and societies alike. Based on 911/ trauma fiction,
this paper examines closely Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land (2007) as a post-911/
and postcolonial fictional narrative by a diasporic Jordanian-American novelist. It is through
an analysis of this literary work of art that the concepts of historical trauma, 911/, political
violence, cultural identity, otherness, diaspora and home are investigated, in their varying
ramifications. In so doing, this work examines the extent which Laila Halaby fictionalizes and
reinterprets 911/ trauma and its impact on diasporic-Arab-Americans who have, in Nadine
Naber’s terms, undergone a kind of paradigm shift, that is, a shift from ‘invisible citizens to
visible subjects.’ Drawing upon trauma studies and postcolonial approaches, the present paper
argues that Halaby’s fictionalizing of 911/ in her aforementioned postcolonial diasporic
trauma narrative unveils the way in which 911/ trauma results a sense of deterritorializing and
a sense of becoming of the notions of diasporic identity, race and home in post-911/ context.
44
Ontogenesis and diagnoses of the Immigration sub-Saharan Africa to Western
Europe : the case of Cote d'ivoire.
Prof. Firmin Ahoua, University Felix Houphouet Boigny.
The parameters for the assessment of the state of the illegal immigration (Fichet 1993),
immigration transit, its ontogenesis and its diagnosis are more or less well known in the
literature (cf. Akindés 2003, Battegay et al. 1993, Mouyaud 2005)
The purpose of the present study is to examine the case of the Ivory Coast. It will show the
close correlation between the growth in the rate of immigration and the various crises that
Côte d'Ivoire has gone through since the coup of 2000. While the figures are alarming (1500
and 2000 immigrants per year), we attempt to describe and analyze the sociological factors,
politico-economic backgrounds based on reports from the Ministry of the Interior and
published works highlighting the elements which have contributed to accentuate the illegal
immigration of young people between 20 and 30 years, from the Ivory Coast as from the
whole of West Africa, in agreement with Gnabéli (2002, 2005), the Pope (2003), who
documents that Morocco is the preferred transit (f. Audrey 2009,Khachani 2008, Haas 2006).
We will try to show that the security situation with a precise description of the political
crises, in particular the lack of employment and the pessimism about policies are some of the
determining factors entering into account. Some cultural factors are however also useful for
understanding the phenomenon, because regional migration was already a current
phenomenon. The present study will propose possible schemes to curb that scourge that has
been devastating for the Ivorian youth, and very likely for most sub-Saharan youth in disarray.
45
Names and jokes that create an identity:
Moroccans and the African other in contact and transition zones
Prof. Mifdal Mohamed ,Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida.
Morocco is no more a stopover for some African immigrants but has become a destination. Moroccan
government has given residence permits to thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans making their stay in
Morocco legal. However, sub-Saharan immigrants claim they face racism, name-calling and attacks
from Moroccans.
This paper is an attempt at understanding the cultural and social origins of the representation of the
African other through the study of the satirical name-calling and ethnic jokes in Morocco. Basically, the
African other is a stereotypical figure in the Moroccan culture and particularly in jokes and has different
names that reveal the social and cultural status given to him or her by Moroccans. It should be noted that
this stereotypical representation of the “Black” existed in Morocco before Morocco has become a
transition zone for Sub-Saharan Africans to Europe. The study of the jokes and name-calling draws on
certain theories in humor studies that contend that the key explanation of this kind of satirical humor is
always the centre-edge relationship of the jokers and the butts of their jokes. It can be argued that the
attitudes of Moroccans towards Sub-Saharan immigrants in contact and transition zones have already
been shaped through history and cultural schemata and are only activated to categorize these
immigrants socially as an emerging minority living at the periphery of the social order.
46
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Day I March 10, 2017
- 08:30 – 12:00 Registration
- 10:00 – 10:10 Opening Speech (conference Chair: Prof. Kamal Sbiri)
- 10:10 – 11: 30 Guest speakers
11:30 – 12:15 Keynote Speaker (Room BC2)
Professor Rachida Yassine: Prévu and Déjà vu : Sub-Saharan Migration to Europe Through
the Visionary Lens of Sembène Ousmane (Moderator: Prof. A. Ridouane)
- 12:15 – 14:30 Lunch
14:30 – 16:00 Session I (Room BC1) (Moderator: Prof. N. Trimasse)
- Sub-Saharan Renegade Communities: from Transnationality to Transition-ality: Prof. A. Ridouane
(CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
- Moroccan Migration and Integration Policy: The Intersection of Culture and Public Policy Making:
Dr. Mohammed Ouhemmou (Hassan II University)
- New Start Finland Aims to develop Novel, Effective Models to Promote Health, Well-Being and
Social Integration of Refugees: Dr. Tiina Ahonen and Dr. Csilla Veszteg (University of Eastern
Finland).
Crossing Borders: Home, Identity and Belonging in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013)
and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009): Dr. Tembi Charles (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
47
14:30 – 16:00 session II (Room BC2) (Moderator: Prof. L. Hamdoune)
- Sub-Saharan Immigrants’ Satire on Moroccans and Europeans in Transition Zones:
Prof. Abdelghani ELkhairate (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
- Rewriting Otherness: The Alter(native) Discourse of Difference in Mohammed As-saffar’s
Sudfat Liqae Maa al Akhar (1845-1846) and Mohammed Al Maqdadi Wartatani’s Al
bournous fi Baris (1913): Dr. Tritha Abdelaziz (Chouaib Doukkali, El Jadida)
- Mobilising Identities.The Internet as a Trans cultural Contact Zone for Malian-diasporic
identity construction: Dr. Syntia Hasenöhrl (University of Vienna)
- Faqir’s Willow Trees Don’t Weep: A Transmodern Journey of Deserted Femininity: Prof.
Dallel Sarnou (Mostaganem University)
- 16:30 Bus-Shuttle
- 19:00 Social Event + Dinner
48
Day II March 11, 2017
09: 00 – 09:45 Keynote Speaker (Room BC2)
- Professor Jopi Nyman: Narrating Forced Migration: Negotiating Mobility in Contemporary Writing (Dr. M. Kharoua)
- 09:45 – 10:00 Coffee Break
10:00 – 11:30 Session III (Room BC1) (Moderator: Prof. A. Ridouane)
- “Ah Cain’t See Me!” The “Black Atlantic Culture” as a Corrective to Modernity:
Prof. Lahoussine Hamdoune (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
- The Politics of Recognition and Cosmopolitanism: For an Ethic of Global Citizenship: Dr.
Rachid Ait abdelmoumen (University of Mohamed V-Rabat)
- Islamophobia, Racism and the Vilification of the Muslim Diaspora: Prof. Rachid Acim
- RIACE MODEL: The Intelligration: Ms. Anna Di Giusto (Italian Society of Historian
Women)
10:00 – 11:30 Session IV (Room BC2) (Moderator: Dr. M. Kharoua)
- The Invisible Crossings: Identity Politics and the Politics of Destabilizing the New Ddiasporic Space in the Mediterranean: Sbiri Kamal (CLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
49
- The Plane Has Departed from Africa: Identity, Language, and Border Crossing in Postcolonial African Writing: Bouchra Benlemlih (FLSH – University Ibn Zohr)
- Ontogenesis and diagnoses of the Immigration sub-Saharan Africa to Western Europe :
the case of Cote d'ivoire. Prof. Firmin Ahoua, University Felix Houphouet Boigny.
- Migration between Reality and Illusion: Gender Approach: Dr. Siham Marroune (University Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University)
- Names and jokes that create an identity: Moroccans and the African other in contact and
transition zones: Prof. Mifdal Mohamed (Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida)
11:30 – 13: 00 Roundtable (Teacher’s Room)
Professor. Dorothea Fischer-Hornung: A
" tlantic Studies: Global Currents": The Journal's
Changing Publication Focus in the Past Decade and Future Potential"(Moderator: Prof. A.
El Khairat)
- 13:15 – 14:30 Lunch
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14:30 – 15:15 Keynote Speaker (Room BC2)
Professor John Oucho: Emigration from Africa to Multiple Norths: Varied stories (Moderator: Prof. K. Sbiri)
15:15 – 17:00 Session V (Room BC1) (Moderator: Prof. A. El Khairat)
- Refugee narratives from Eastern Africa: Revitalizing the Indian Ocean’s Traumatic past: Dr.
Mustapha Kharoua (University of Eastern Finland)
- Transnational Families across Africa: Constructions of Family Networks between Morocco
and the Other African Countries: Abderrahim Anbi (FLSH – Ibn Zohr University)
- Edward Said’s “Between Worlds” and The Dilemma of Home: Identity from a
Middle-Space Encounter: Dr. Latifa Safoui (University Ben’msik, Casablanca)
- Afro-American Prison Writings: Undoing Race Trouble and Trauma Recovery: Dr. Ismail
FROUINI and prof. Abdelkader Sabil (Chouaib Doukkali University)
- Diasporic Women’s Narratives: Women’s Sexuality and Religion as Conflicting Forces In
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Najat El Hachmi’s The Last Patrifarch: Dr. Fatima Zahra Abid (Mohamed V University)
15:15 – 17:00 session VI (Room BC2) (Moderator: Prof. N. Trimasse)
- The Ontologies of Border Crossing: Prof. Mohammed Nouhi (ENSA – University Ibn
Zohr)
- Sub Saharan Women in Morocco and their Relationship to their Transnational Children:
Cynthia Magallanes-Gonzalez (Occidental College, Los Angeles)
- The Translation of Culture from a Postcolonial Perspective in Season of Migration to the
North: Dr. Hassan OU-HSSATA (Sultan Moulay Slimane University)
- The Itinerary of a Hyphenated Writer: Arab-American Identity and Memory in Laila
Halaby’s West of the Jordan: Dr. Hind Youssefi (Sultan Mulay Sliman University Beni
Mellal)
- (Re)framing Trauma, Home, Race and Diasporic Identity in (Post-)9/11 Fiction : Laila
Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land (2007) as a Case Study: Dr. Brahim BENMOH and Prof.
Hamza TOUZANI (Chouaib Doukkali University)
17:00 Recommendations and Closing (Moderator: Prof. K Sbiri)
Departur
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ROUND TABLE
Prof. Fischer-Hornung Dorothea
Dorothea Fischer-Hornung is recently retired Senior Lecturer in the English Department at
the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and faculty member of the Heidelberg Center for
American Studies. She is the author of numerous publications in the field of African and
Native American literature and culture, with an emphasis on dance and performance studies.
Among her most recent book-length publications are Aesthetic Practices and Politics in
Media, Music, and Art: Performing Migration (edited with Rocio Davis and Johanna Kardux;
Routledge, 2010) and Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational
Transformations, (edited with Monika Mueller; University Press of Mississippi, 2016). She
was a founding executive of MESEA, The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the
Americas and acted as President between 2006 and 2014. She is a founding editor of the
journal Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, Routledge U.K.
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SCIENTIFIC BOARD (alphabetical order)
• professor EL GHAZI Mohamed (FLSH - UIZ)
• Professor EL KHAIRAT Abdelghani (CUAM - UIZ)
• Dr. KHAROUA Mustapha (UEF)
• Professor NYMAN Jopi (UEF)
• Professor OUCHO John (NU)
• Professor RIDOUANE Abdelmajid (CUAM - UIZ)
• Professor SBIRI Kamal Conference Chair
• Professor TRIMASSE Naima (CUAM - UIZ)
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (alphabetical order)
• Professor EL KHAIRAT Abdelghani (CUAM - UIZ)
• Dr. KHAROUA Mustapha (UEF)
• Professor RIDOUANE Abdelmajid (CUAM - UIZ)
• Professor SBIRI Kamal Conference Chair
• Professor TRIMASSE Naima (CUAM - UIZ)
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CONTACT
KAMAL SBIRI
[email protected]
0600 396 495